Ceramic Conversations and More

The weekend of 1/2 April saw the opening of the museum for ‘Ceramic Conversations’ delivered as part of the Creative Museums project being led by the Battersea Arts Centre, from 10am-5pm on both Saturday and Sunday. I was able to help on Saturday afternoon, and was rather excited by the first sight of the event from the other side of Bath Road:

 There were lots of people outside, making things with clay, there were lots of conversations going on as people moulded their clay. There had been a potter on a wheel in the morning.

 We were every fortunate with the weather, despite it being the beginning of April, it was possible to stay outside all afternoon, aided by coffee from Matthew Pearce's Coffee Gang

 There was also a Magic Roundabout record player under a gazebo with instructions to help yourself and put whatever music on you wanted.

 With some signage and gold foil

 beside the record player was the museum sign with the new opening hours on it:

 Inside the ceramic displays were big and bold

 In the first cabinet there were our 2 Desmond Morris paintings, on the left, barely visible 'Diana Dors' and on the right 'The Surprise'

 There was also a Ginger Beer bar celebrating the fact there were many companies making ginger beer in opaque beige bottles and ginger ale, a clear substance, in glass bottles. This led to many conversations about how people at home also used to make ginger beer.

 This photo was taken about 4pm when there were still quite a few people around outside, many people had a 'dwell' time of 2 hours which is good.

 Here's an elephant lovingly made by one of the dads attending with his son.

 The person running the show was Amy Pennington on Saturday, here she is running the Swindon quiz

 now Amy seen below negotiating with the teams taking part in the quiz

 A lovely afternoon, many fascinating people came along to chat and share their views, or simply to sample the ginger beer and have a look round the museum.
Over the two days, almost 600 people came along, let's hope this is the first of many weekend events held at the museum.
Meanwhile I'm looking forward to volunteering to help support the new hours of opening, my first shift will be 11am-1pm this Friday, can't wait.